Values, values on the wall: Who practises, who recalls?

ON SEPT 8, Richard Cordray, director of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), announced that Wells Fargo would pay US$185 million in fines for illegally creating unauthorised deposit and credit card accounts across the United States.

The saddest thing about Wells Fargo's fraud is that no one is surprised. As the leading Israeli humourist and gestalt master Lenny Ravich once said, "99 per cent of bankers give a bad name to this profession". We would go as far as to say: many bankers nowadays are ashamed to introduce themselves as "bankers" in public presentations.

Wells Fargo's stock price dove, shaving US$24 billion from its investors. Some 5,300 employees were fired - but, surprisingly, very few senior executives. In fact, not even one senior executive has as yet taken any action that shows personal accountability; the…